Everyone remembers CNOOC's failed bid for U.S. oil company UNOCAL, right? Note that the reason for the failure was rampant U.S. protectionism and xenophobia similar to the anti-Japanese attitudes of the 1980s and early 1990s before the bottom dropped out of the Japanese economy.

So here comes Carlyle Group in a bid to take a huge stake in Xugong, a Chinese mega-construction firm. Folks in Beijing and elsewhere in the country cry foul, saying that SOEs are selling too much of their equity for fire-sale prices. This is also a direct criticism of Beijing's policy to reorganize and improve SOEs, in part, by getting foreign companies on board.

Anyway, Carlyle gave up the lobbying war and reduced its stake to 50%. At least they were not forced to pull out entirely, like CNOOC. Read the AP article here, and enjoy the bit about the reaction from Washington: "a U.S. trade official, Undersecretary of Commerce Franklin L. Lavin, visited Beijing and said Washington hoped such decisions would be based on 'business logic.'"

This stuff is priceless, it really is.